Doctor Who: The Sensorites

The Whoathon returns! After a bit of a hiatus, it’s back. A friend of mine watched this one with me. Well, we weren’t in the same place, but we watched at the same time and texted each other about the episode. It was fun. I highly recommend watching Doctor Who with a friend. I don’t think I would have enjoyed this story if it weren’t for my friend making comments about the Doctor being a wanker and the Sensorites looking like they're wearing pajamas and one of the guest characters being incredibly boring. So, this post will be on the short side.

The 1st Doctor is being cranky again.

Incredibly brief summary! The TARDIS gang arrives on a ship that is stuck in orbit around a planet. The crew of the ship is subjected to occasional mind control by the Sensorites, inhabitants of the planet below. They aren’t allowed to leave, and one of them has gone kind of nuts. The Sensorites steal the lock of the TARDIS, so the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan can’t leave, either. We discover that Susan can communicate telepathically with the Sensorites. Funny how Susan being telepathic has never come up before and how at the end of the episode it is explained away and her telepathic ability is gone.

How is he breathing outside the ship? What is he standing on to look through the window?

The Doctor, Ian, and Susan go down to the planet to see about getting that lock back and leave Barbara on board the ship. Barbara wasn’t in a few episodes of the story! I missed her. Ian OBVIOUSLY missed her. He’s the one who was asking that she be brought down from the ship, of course. One of the Sensorites on the planet doesn’t like the humans and makes mischief. Ian gets deathly ill, which leads the Doctor to solve a serious problem the Sensorites were having and couldn’t figure out themselves. The solution was obvious to the point that I called it before it was revealed, so I don’t know why the Sensorites didn’t see it.

Lapels!

There's more mischief and lots of time wandering around in an aqueduct, and everything turns out okay in the end. Even the crazy boring guy gets a happy ending. They deal with the main baddie offscreen, which seemed odd. He wreaks havoc for several episodes, and they just mention what happens to him like an afterthought. Oh, that guy. Yep, we punished him.

Next up is "The Reign of Terror." I remember that being a good one. I hope that turns out to be right.

THE RUNDOWN

Doctor: First

Companions: Barbara, Ian, Susan

Episode: #7, "The Sensorites," six parts- 'Strangers in Space,' 'The Unwilling Warriors,' 'Hidden Danger,' 'A Race Against Death,' 'Kidnap,' 'A Desperate Venture'

Adversary: the Sensorite city administrator

Classic Lines: the Doctor: "Beau Brummel always said I looked better in a cloak."

Tuck This Away to Impress Your Friends: Susan talks about their home planet but doesn't mention its name. She says that the sky is burnt orange and the trees have bright silver leaves.

Next Up: "The Reign of Terror"